They set out to “hurt Hitler”… but ended up blowing up the audience instead. Carol Burnett, Tim Conway, and Harvey Korman turned a tense spy scene into one of the funniest “disasters” in TV history. When Carol broke character, Conway forgot his lines, and Korman couldn’t stop laughing — comedy history was made. A mission that failed spectacularly, but made the whole world laugh for half a century.
“They Tried to Hurt Hitler… But Ended Up Destroying the Audience Instead!”
What started as a straight-faced World War II spy sketch quickly turned into one of the funniest on-air collapses in TV history.
In The Carol Burnett Show’s legendary skit “The Plot to Hurt Hitler,” Carol Burnett, Tim Conway, and Harvey Korman were supposed to pull off a tense undercover mission behind enemy lines. Instead, everything went gloriously wrong.
Tim Conway — the king of breaking character — forgot his lines halfway through, replacing them with improvised gibberish in a fake German accent.
Harvey Korman, trying to stay in character as a Nazi officer, completely lost it — his face red, shoulders shaking, desperately turning away from the camera to hide his laughter.
And Carol Burnett? She went “undercover” as a blonde femme fatale… and couldn’t keep a straight face either.
Within seconds, the serious “mission” became a complete comedic meltdown. Cameramen were laughing so hard their shots wobbled. The audience was in tears. Even Conway and Korman stopped pretending — they simply surrendered to the chaos.
It wasn’t the sketch they rehearsed — but it was perfectly Carol Burnett: unplanned, unfiltered, and unforgettable.
Decades later, fans still replay The Plot to Hurt Hitler not for the script, but for that raw, contagious laughter that took over the entire studio.
It’s proof that sometimes, the funniest moments aren’t written — they just happen when genius cracks up on live TV.
